Grace Notes

Musician Profile: Nola Richardson, soprano

JO SHUTE

Nola Richardson will be returning to Upper Valley Baroque to perform in three programs this season!

In Handel’s Messiah (Sept 20-21), she’ll lend her shimmering soprano to multiple beautiful solos including the famous “Rejoice greatly.”  In our all-Vivaldi program (Jan 23-24-25), Nola will delight listeners with his In furore iustissimae irae, an exciting and demanding piece for soprano and string orchestra. And in the Italian Madrigals program (Apr 24-25), Nola will display her mastery of early Baroque music in an intimate chamber setting with only four other UVB singers and theorbo.

An Australian by birth, Nola has spent most of her life in the US. She holds a BM from Illinois Wesleyan University and dual MM degrees in Vocal Performance and Early Music from the Peabody Conservatory. She was a young artist with the Boston Early Music Festival, a vocal fellow at Tanglewood, a Marc and Eva Stern Fellow at Songfest, and most recently, a Carmel Bach Festival Virginia Best Adams Fellow. Nola attended the Institute of Sacred Music Program, and in May of 2020 she was the first and only female singer to receive the prestigious DMA degree in Early Music Voice from Yale​.

Nola adds:

“When I’m not on the road, I live with my wonderful husband, Marc, and my cats, Poppy and Melba (two out of the three of them enjoy my singing)! Despite being a professional performer, I’m somewhat of an introvert and I love curling up with a good book or going for walks in the park with a podcast. I am also a prolific knitter and I usually have yarn and knitting needles with me wherever I go! I love to visit yarn stores in different cities and I’ve been dabbling in designing my own knitting patterns. During the pandemic, I got deeper into my fiber interests and learned how to spin my own yarn with a spinning wheel, and also bought a couple of small looms to learn how to weave. I like writing, and I’ve had a few sets of program notes published. I hope to do more writing in the future and also try my hand at composing fiction!

“I enjoy performing as a soloist (it’s always a huge thrill to perform with an orchestra!), but I also really love taking part in smaller, collaborative projects. I love learning unusual repertoire, expanding my knowledge of music history, and bringing joy to people when I sing.”